Voyage to Antartica - An Odyssey to the Past, Present and Future of The Gelid Mysterious Continent

This book narrates the Antarctic expedition chronologically right from the inspiration for undertaking the expedition, acclimatization training at Himalayas and so on till many months after the completion of the expedition to assess the effect of the expedition on the author's personal and professional life. While the book is about Indian expedition, it thoroughly covers Antarctica at the international arena, explains the past, present and future of the continent, the science behind a number of the natural phenomenon of Antarctica and would arguably serve as the most authentic popular science book on the Antarctica worldwide yet.

Dr Felix Bast is a teacher, scientist and science writer based at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, Punjab. He earned his PhD in molecular phylogenetics from MEXT, Japan (Monbukagakusho Japanese Government Fellow), and received training from Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, USA, Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, UK and Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT), Germany. He served as an invited in-residence intern with President of India as an Inspired teacher in 2015, and had been recipient of INSA-INSPIRE Faculty Award from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He also received Teaching Innovator Award 2016 from MHRD, Govt. of India. He is an elected fellow of INSA-INYAS, New Delhi. His major research contributions include the discovery of two new species of marine algae from Indian coast, the discovery of endophytic algae from the Indian Ocean for the first time, demystification of blood rain phenomenon. This book chronicles author’s first-hand experience during the expedition to Antarctica as part of the 36th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (ISEA) that he undertook during 2016-17.

The very inspiration to undertake Antarctic expedition chronicled herein comes from a large number of travel and expedition books in Malayalam that I read during my school days ("Science Cream" series by Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad). Upon receiving the selection order from the Ministry of Earth Sciences as an expedition member for 36th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica, an idea to write a book portraying the forthcoming voyage sparked off in me, perhaps because of the subconscious urge roused years ago by those delightful "Science Creams." The aim for this work is straightforward; a book that truthfully captures my experience as part of the Indian mission to Antarctica, written in a lucid language. Writing this book began during the voyage and continued throughout the next year. Having read a large number of publications and scholarly articles on Antarctica, I spent a significant amount of time researching things explained in this book. While making this work as comprehensive as possible, the book is highly accessible and non-technical, complimenting my science communication spirit perfectly. I have been sharing this story-the story of my Voyage to Antarctica, as if sharing a top secret, with people of all ages through my countrywide scientific outreach talks. Dialogues that we had, especially with young curious minds at remote government schools, helped me a lot on improvising the initial draft of this book.

**Contents and Sample Pages**